Eye Cutter

Here are two Xmas presents from Santa from this part of the world. They belong to two of my friends who got their units during the Spartan's launch here in Manila. Heavy's Spartan Arpee's Spartan

instead of steel plates, you can use eggs instead. although its going to be a mess afterwards, the sight of exploding eggs are fun. plus its a lot harder target to shoot. we also had a swat/cqb style team relay wherein 3-4 members had to shoot in turns a cof. after every position, the lead member will unload, clear and holster his pistol and fall back to the end of the train before the next one in line can load and proceed to shoot the stage and so on.

flex: yup, i agree. if they sold it in blue, it will be a prettier pistol, imho.

Really? Wouldn't that just wear off in a day or two of dry-firing anyway? flex: huh? what will wear off? the parkerized finish or the blue finish? Is a phosphate finish more durable than blueing? And is it more expensive than blueing? I have a parkerized 1911 like that on the spartan which has worn off around the trigger guard, front of the slide and front strap from dry firing and range use. The parkerized texture is gritty. I also have a blued 1911 pistol with roughly the same handling and range time but the finish on the high stress areas has held up way better than the parkerized finish.

i wonder how much will be added to the base price of the pistol if they have the finish blued instead of being parkerized. hmmm...

the slide does not have the usual sti stirrup-cut. i believe it is an armscor slide marked with the sti logo. the armscor slides are very tough as proven with a lot of ipsc type pistols (high volume shooting)being used here. its more expensive here than what it's going for in the States! it retails here in Manila for P35,000. that's $700 at P50:$1

the Ed Brown wide ambi safeties works best for me.

Dave Skinner and his Wife were present during last weekend's gunshow here in Manila. All the complete sti spartan pistols and sti frame kits were sold within the first 3 days of the show. There is currently a waiting time for a production unit of a couple of months back here and only if you make a reservation fee! My hats off to the Skinners (STI) and the Tuasons (ARMSCOR) for a sure winner!

Sun Star Cebu Monday, October 16, 2006 Rama: Of local boys and the French phenom By Karlon N. Rama Stage five FRANCE’s Eric Grauffel dominated the Open Division of the Asean League Championship, which closed at the Cebu Pistol and Rifle Association (CPRA) last Saturday, showing again the form that made him World Shoot Champion thrice. He had a straightforward yet unforgiving game plan when he went in and took on his first few stages of the competition last Thursday– to play consistently and to not make any mistakes. And he did just that. Shooters from the Philippine Team likewise made waves in the competition, with Jag Lejano and Stephen Hinojales taking second and third spot to the French phenom. Moreover, the hotly contested Standard Division championship trophy went to the hands Nelson Uygongco. Cebu City’s Dino Cinco, for his part, won the gold in the Standard Division’s junior category and was granted the coveted International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) President’s Medal. Jag (real name Jeufro) was the Modified Division champion in the last World Shoot, held in Ecuador. Hinojales, meanwhile, was no.13 in the Open Division of that match. The official results are yet to be posted both at the CPRA and the Philippine Practical Shooting Association websites. The competition in the Open Division category is the fastest and most action-packed in practical shooting matches. Here, shooters use pistols that have been enhanced with electronic optical devices for faster target-acquisition and compensators to lessen recoil and keep the gap between the first and second shots short. Impressive. Grauffel, in an interview last Oct. 10, had predicted that shooters from Team Philippines would clinch top spots in the match. He said he’d observed how shooters like Lejano and Hinojales performed in Ecuador and, before that, the Austral-Asian Championships in Bali, Indonesia, where the two landed both in the top five in the overalls. Grauffel also had his eyes out for another Filipino shooter, a 15-year-old boy by the name of Kenneth Ray Augustin who, according to sources, landed seventh in the Open Division and clinched the junior category trophy. Grauffel said the Philippines has more or less about the same firearm laws as France and both governments recognize practical shooting as a legitimate sport. But getting into shooting is more expensive here than in France where competition among firearm and ammunition makers drives costs lower. Augustine is the incumbent Space City Challenge Open Division champion. He clinched the title in a match held in Houston, Texas, earlier this year. I saw the boy in action as he took on Stage 23, overseen by Chief Range Officer Ceferino Layao, at the height of the competition. He posted the fastest time. Embarrassing. An entry written by Brian Enos, one of the top shooting athletes the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) ever produced, in the forum section of his www.brianenos.com website is very disconcerting. Those who can ought to do something. He headlined the post as the “first successful fraud order in my store in seven years” and addressed it “to the Philippines.” Apparently, the buyer (full name is mentioned in the website), of San Antonio Village 2, Cebu City, placed an order for $95.38 worth of Slide-Glide, a special firearm lubricant, and some brushes from the gunshop that Brian Enos owns and markets on the web. The order was charged to a credit card account that, later on, turned out to be owned by somebody else who complained about the unauthorized transaction. Further down the post, he wrote: “This issue brings up another issue regarding overseas sales. I’m about ready to set my store for US sales only. International orders are pretty much just a loser overall. It’s amazing how many orders I have to re-send, especially to the Philippines. A lot of stuff just never shows up.” (knrama@gmail.com)

sorry about that brian. chuck bradley of shooters connection was almost hit by that same guy.

Dan sure makes pretty pistols! My dan bedell wannabe open pistol. SPS frame, Caspian slide, schuemann hybricomp barrel, EE ultimate hammer kit. Since its nearly impossible to get dan's pistol back here in Asia, I just had to make do with a copy of his design.

8lb ismi in a full length guide rod. what is the spring rating of the light recoil masters (pounds)? how about the heavy rm's?

i can load 22rds of 38super in my 140mm sti tube with dp +1 base pads with a 13coil grams spring set. if i use the +2 dp pads, sometimes the spring will bind at the bottom and the rounds will get stuck and not go up.

+1! we also use beven's spring and follower sets for our open pisto's magazines back here in RP.

Great post XRE! i agree with your perceptions as well. Load selection is just one of the factors in making an open pistol shoot flatter. I am using a 5 inch schuemann 4port hybrid barrel with a bedell titanium comp in .38 super. My load data is 124gr sellier and bellot fmj's with 8.6gr 3n37. PF 165. Dot bounce is well within the cmore's HUD but the 2nd shot was still going 6-8 inches from the first shot. We were watching some of our shooting videos, when we noticed that the pistol's muzzle was still flipping significantly. I was thinking of a too loose grip but when going over the pistol, we noted that the the cmore's allchin mount had a big powder mark on its blast shield. The force on the blast shield was flipping the gun higher than I liked. So I had my smith trim the allchin's shield about 1/2 its original size. Some of the blast is still hitting the shield but now the pistol is shooting very flat with less muzzle flip. I am now able to track the dot significantly faster and keep the second shot 1-2 inches from the first hit.

yep. the foot position was mandatory. feet together, toes or heels touching the start marker. some level 1 matches here in the Philippines start with chamber empty for extra safety factor for newbie shooters. but still, we get occasional AD's. as noted from Jet's videos, i think he must still be a bit rusty coming out from a very long hiatus of pistol shooting. the back step, feet crossing going from port to port, etc. i'd love to watch him shoot in a few more weeks time when he gets back 100% and into his groove. I'm still waiting for McOliver to send me the videos of that particular shoot. I'll upload some of jasonub's stages of the same match for comparison purposes.

Jet's splits and transitions are what leaves the competition behind! I wonder what his times will be if he'll use a hi-cap standard pistol... I'll try to get more videos of Jet.

yup! i agree with GMV. had the chance to shoot his SPS modified pistol at the range. same recoil feel shooting minor factor in standard/limited :-)

jake: care to share your load data?

i'm right handed but left eye dominant. used to have problems with sight misalignment due to head tilt and head turned to the right. i solved my problem by bring the pistol over to the left side during the draw and aligned with my dominant left eye. target arrays are the same for most lefties. I engage most arrays from right to left, eyes looking ahead at next target, the pistol follows. that way i don't have my vision blocked by my arm during transitions if i shoot left to right.

my daughter's toy poodle

wow! that is one mean looking pistol!

talk about subject composition! hahaha! what a great shot! :-)

hahaha!

here is a pic of the comp oliver's goin to use. it came from an old .38 super barrel with the comp designed for the old 175 power factor